1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system in which an image forming apparatus and an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer are capable of being interconnected, an image forming apparatus preferably employed in this image forming system, and a computer readable recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
For recent years, an image forming system that generates customized printer drivers which functions are prohibited/permitted for individual users by a printer administrator and provides the printer drivers to the individual users, has been used. Such a printer driver has a default configuration and a user can change it. Alternatively, if a user cannot change the default configuration, he/she will become able to change it and apply the changed configuration to job execution by installing another printer driver, which has been a problem to be resolved.
To resolve this problem, there is a print control system as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-220532. With this print control system, prohibited/permitted function information is stored in advance in a user's information processing terminal, and then the printer driver detects the prohibited/permitted function information before execution of a print job and determines as a print control condition the user's permitted function for execution of a print job based on the prohibited/permitted function information detected therefrom.
With this configuration, the user can be notified of his/her prohibited function for execution of a print job. Concretely, such a notice is given in a manner that prevents the user from selecting the prohibited function, thus the user never can give to a print apparatus, an instruction to execute a print job using the prohibited function. This could improve user operability, and also improve usefulness of the print apparatus since the print apparatus would never receive an instruction to execute a print job that should not be executed due to use of the prohibited function, uselessly.
And there is a print system as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-058316. With this print system, when a printer driver is activated on a user's information processing terminal, prohibition/permission information stored in the user's information processing terminal is transmitted to a server having prohibition/permission information stored therein for individual users. And if the prohibition/permission information received therefrom and the prohibition/permission information stored in the server are identical, the server accepts a request to provide job information to a printer to make it execute a print job.
However, with the technology described in Japanese Unexamined Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-220532, since prohibited/permitted function information is stored in advance in a user's information processing terminal, the user can change the default information to give an instruction to execute a job without using the default information, on a purpose. This may cause a security problem.
And with the technology described in Japanese Unexamined Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-058316, a user's prohibition/permission information is checked by a server at least one time. This would make job execution slower.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.